anted their own way. On the whole, honours
were even, though, if anything, slightly in Lovelace's favour, since he
had filled up the scrum with a School House forward and a member of
Benson's, a small and rather insignificant House, instead of giving the
colours to men in Buller's.

But next term there would be fewer rows. There would be house matches,
and each house captain would run things in his own house as he wished.
The school captain did little except post up which grounds each house
was to occupy. The School House always longed for the Easter term. It
was their chance of showing the rest of the school what they were made
of. As they were slightly bigger than any other house, they claimed the
honour of playing the three best of the outhouses in the great Three
Cock House Match for the Senior Challenge Cup. This year, with Lovelace
and Meredith, a School House victory was looked on as almost certain.
Besides this big event there were the Two Cock and Thirds House Match.
In the "Thirds" the School House under sixteen house side played against
the two best of the outhouses under sixteen sides, for the Thirds
Challenge Cup. And in the Two Cock, the second House Fifteen--that is,
the House Fifteen minus those with first and second Fifteen
colours--played the two best of the outhouse second Fifteens for the
Junior Challenge Cup. The results of these last two matches were very
much on the knees of the gods. The House stood a fair chance, but the
general opinion was that Buller's would win the Thirds; and Christy's, a
house that was full of average players who were too slack to get their
seconds, would pull off the Two Cock. At any rate, there would be no
lack of excitement. There was always far more keenness shown about house
matches than school matches, a fact which worried Buller immensely. He
thought everything should be secondary to the interests of Fernhurst.

On the last Saturday of the term there was the House Supper. It was a
noble affair. The bloods wore evening dress; even the untidiest junior
oiled his hair and put on a clean collar. At the Sixth Form table sat
the Chief, some guests, Lovelace, Clarke, and a certain Ferguson, who
edited _The Fernhurst School Magazine_, and was to propose the health of
the old boys, of whom about twenty had come down, several having helped
to defeat the school by twenty points to sixteen in the afternoon. Never
had so much food been seen before. Turner had boasted that he alwa